Bugs and Critical Thinking

I’m often asked why I consider my bugology writing to be skeptical. The connection between skepticism and entomology isn’t always immediately apparent, I guess, but it seems quite logical to me.

There are many, many bogus devices that claim to repel insects, and I think it’s important to name names. There are far too few convictions for fraud in the insect repellent business. I’ve called out some of these in the past; the iPhone app that supposedly repels mosquitoes, for example, or the Bug Banisher that releases an imaginary “negative ion field.” It seems sometimes like as fast as I can name and shame, there are new and even more silly devices on the market.

Shoo!tags “utilize an understanding of nature’s energetic principles in combination with physics and quantum physics, as well as advanced computer software”. What exactly does that mean? Well, just as the magnetic strip on a credit card is encoded with specific information, there is a three dimensional electromagnetic field embedded in the Shoo!tag. Shoo!tag uses the energy field that a animal emits, then adds other frequencies that repel insects. Although they don’t actually kill insect pests, these frequency barriers disturb and confuse the pests. Essentially, the pests don’t want to be anywhere near the Shoo!tag wearer.

By now, your BS antennae should be quivering. Frankly, anytime someone uses the word “Quantum” to sell you something, be suspicious. Or when something with no power source claims to generate an electromagnetic field. Reading the disclaimers about why the tags might not work as promised can be rather hilarious:

“Possible reasons shoo!TAG™ may not be working: The tag is near or has been near a strong frequency (cell phone towers, electric transformers, fault lines, electronic home security systems, etc.) which interferes with the coding in the magnetic strip.”

Ah! That’s why it didn’t work–I live in the US, where those things are difficult to avoid. According to recent press, shoo!TAG™ is a >$600,000 dollar business. That’s probably because each arthropod needs its own tag. You can’t just buy one; you need a chip for:

Mosquitoes ($19.95)

No-see-ums ($19.95)

Chiggers ($19.95)

Ticks ($19.95)

Flies (species not specified, but presumably not mosquitoes or no-see-ums, which are, in fact, flies) $19.95

For full “protection” in the woods, that’s about $100, although they do have a Mosquito-Chigger-Tick pack for just $39.95. Each tag lasts about 4 months, unless you have an especially vigorous energy field. Oh, and you have to outfit your pets too–the tags above are (literally) dog tags.

I was all ready to go postal about this when I realized that someone had already done that work for me. Major props go to Anaglyph for masterful work in exposing just how shabby Shoo!TAG’s claims for their products are. He’s been writing about this since 2009; you can find an archive of all his Shoo!TAG posts here. His series of posts is an excellent example of how one person with a blog can make a difference.

Anaglyph’s done a great job explaining why the these devices can’t possibly work without massive violations of physics as we know it. Since their claims of magical electromagnetic field creation are bogus, I don’t think I need to bother explaining why the energy field these tags don’t generate….. would not repel insects anyway.

My concerns with ShooTag are many: firstly, you are taking advantage of people by selling them something which, although it is not supported by any known science, you continually attempt to frame in a scientific context. In other words, you use ‘sciencey’ sounding terms to attempt to make ShooTag sound credible.

For a start, you offer up ideas such as the ‘trivector’ mechanism, ‘energy’ fields and the vague concept of biological ‘frequencies’ as if they are proper scientifically supported notions, which they are not. At best these things are speculative, but mostly they are just plain nonsense. In addition to presenting pseudoscience as science, you imply that the mechanism of ShooTag is somehow supported by actual scientific concepts of which you plainly have little comprehension, such as quantum physics, fractal mathematics and Schumann Waves.

All these things are meaningless in relation to your product, at least in any way that have attempted to demonstrate so far. You also use the names of scientists like Albert Einstein and Geoffrey West, whose work you clearly don’t understand, in a manner that suggests that their theories offer support of your own speculations (which they most certainly don’t). This is misleading and irresponsible.

In addition to all this, you regularly refer to scientific ‘experiments’ which you say demonstrate not only that your product works, but that it works extraordinarily well. The experiments you reference either show nothing of the sort (such as your ‘Texas A&M Field Trials’ which were scientifically ridiculous), or don’t have substantiation of any kind (like the supposed ‘European Trials’ which you have mentioned on several occasions on the web but from which you have never provided any data whatsoever, or the supposed supporting video from ‘the Japanese Ministry of Health’ which you boasted about on your site but which never materialised there for anyone to see). You also continue to heavily infer that credible organizations are involved with your product (Texas A&M University, Texas State University, the Japanese Ministry of Health, the Finnish Olympic Team) when it is clear that no such endorsements have been made or were intended (as is quite evident from my conversations with the administration at Texas State University, and their requirement that you remove any such TSU endorsements from your site). Excuse me for saying so, but responsible companies with legitimate products do not undertake this kind of deceptive behaviour.

In short, you want everyone, particularly your prospective customers, to think that ShooTag is validated by science and approved by authoritative institutions, yet you have nothing to support your claims other than self-generated hyperbole and subjective customer testimonials. No science.

Oh, SNAP. That. Was. Awesome.
And there’s more–read the full letter for a masterful spanking of a woo peddler.

What they are doing is just….vile. I can’t think of a more descriptive word. Sure, these tags seem like innocuous pieces of crap that will part gullible people from their money. It’s all fun and games until someone dies of malaria, yellow fever, or lyme disease, because they thought hanging a credit card around their neck would protect them.

The problem is, to whom do you report people selling this kind of woo to? There has to be a way to make an obviously fake device like this go away.

Well.

The Federal Trade Commission has prosecuted people selling deceptive devices before, but they sure don’t make reporting easy. Their Complaint Assistant is mostly focused on online fraud and identity theft. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is a possibility, but again, shoo!TAG™ doesn’t really fit into any of their categories.

Minimum risk pesticides are a special class of pesticides that are not subject to federal registration requirements because their ingredients, both active and inert, are demonstrably safe for the intended use.

Since shoo!TAG™ is plastic and don’t do anything, I’d say they’re inert, alright. But “minimum risk”? It turns out there is some special language about that exemption:

“EPA…concluded that public health products must be supported by evidence that they are effective against the target pest.”

And here is where I go all PollyAnna on your asses. I believe that social media has the potential to truly change the way the world works. One of the things bloggers can do with their bully pulpits—no matter how modest– is fact-check claims that businesses (or politicians!) make, and call readers to action. While blogs and Twitter and Facebook can disrupt our lives, they also make it possible for people to draw attention to things that just aren’t right.

As blog readers, you can respond and spread that fact-checking in ways that warm the cockles of my misanthropic little heart. Let’s harness our community power. Who knows someone at the EPA enforcement division? Minions, mobilize!!

bug_girl

Bug_girl has a PhD in Entomology, and is a pointy-headed former academic living in Ohio. She is obsessed with insects, but otherwise perfectly normal. Really!
If you want a daily stream of cool info about bugs, follow her Facebook page or find her on Twitter.

Such blatant scams should be investigated and taken down by the authorities. Sure, people are naive and will fall for it, but that isn’t really an argument for not taking legal actions. Fraud is fraud and is a crime regardless of whether the victims consider themselves victims or not …

My buddy will not actually DO anything about it – he has handballed it back to me to make a complaint to the “therapeutic devices” section of the TGA.

If Shootag is not registered as a TD, then they may be interested – if indeed it is advertised here for use on humans.

Does it really surprise us that it is so difficult to make a complaint online? They probably set it up that way to minimise the workload for them: so that it is easy to report the uncommon complaints but hard to report the common ones.

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The Skepchick Network is a collection of smart and often sarcastic blogs focused on science and critical thinking. The original site is Skepchick.org, founded by Rebecca Watson in 2005 to discuss women’s issues from a skeptical standpoint.